The mayors of Calgary and Edmonton seem to think they know best when it comes to COVID-19.
Instead of listening to “the science” and the provincial government’s health experts Mayors Don Iveson and Naheed Nenshi would prefer their citizens remain muzzled for a while longer. Even after the conditions to Stage 3 are met, the two socialist mayors have pledged to keep masks a requirement.
Alberta is set to enter Stage 3 once 70% of its population has been vaccinated with one dose of a COVID-19 shot. In Alberta, as of June 15, 2021, 68.8% of all people have received at least one dose of an eligible vaccine.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has urged the two cities to “respect” the provincial government’s plan and follow the advice of its health experts.
“I would just hope that everyone in the province follows the advice of the chief medical officer, whose team proposed our open for summer plan, which is a safe plan,” Kenney said.
In other words, Kenney wants Nenshi and Iveson to believe the science.
“We’ve seen places all across the world open up completely at much lower levels of [vaccine] population protection and see their [COVID case] numbers continue to fall,” he said.
According to Iveson, he is just looking out for Edmontonians, and is prepared to keep people masked until the end of the 2021.
“I can virtually guarantee that we will be in a state where we can lift the mask bylaw well before the end of the year,” Iveson said.
Contrary to Iveson’s views, mayoral candidate Mike Nickel told The Counter Signal that Edmonton should abide by the re-opening plan.
“The City should 100% comply with Phase 3,” said Nickel.
Likewise, outgoing Calgary Mayor Nenshi wants to keep Calgarians masked.
“We here at the City of Calgary have to make a decision for Calgary, based on the very local issues here and based on the outbreaks, variants and neighbourhoods here,” said Nenshi.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Nenshi also gloated about how he had forced mask-wearing onto Calgarians before there was even a provincial mandate for masks.
“I will remind people however that we had a mask mandate long before the province had any guidance regarding masking,” said Nenshi.
“As far as I’m concerned we are independent of the province and we will do what’s right for citizens and what’s right for the economy.”
